U.S. defense policy authority urges removal of defense budget cap

U.S. Republican Senator John McCain, an influential voice on the country's national defense policy, touted Thursday a beefed-up defense budget as both chambers of the U.S. Congress were grappling to strike a deal on the defense budget for Fiscal Year 2016.

"What we can do, and must do, is (to) rebuild the bipartisan consensus in favor of a strong, internationalist foreign policy," said McCain, chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, at an event at Washington-based Center for Strategic & International Studies. "One way to do that...is to end sequestration and put in place strategy-driven defense budgets."

The budget sequestration refers to a legislative provision that mandates the return of major government spending cuts in this October unless Congress changes it.

U.S. President Barack Obama's 2016 defense budget proposal added 38 billion dollars to the 523-billion-dollar budget limit. However, lawmakers were reluctant to remove the budget cap. Instead, in order to meet the level requested by the Defense Department, lawmakers sought a short-term fix by putting 96 billion dollars into an overseas war budget account, almost 40 billion dollars more than required by the military.

The overseas war account is not restricted by sequestration.

U.S. military officials have complained on several Capitol hearings that pouring excessive funding into overseas operations would damage efforts to rebuild "readiness" for development of domestic forces.

"We will also continue to insist that Republicans cannot talk tough on national security but be unwilling to pay for it," said McCain, expressing confidence that in the end, defense spending increases will be achieved by "prudent arguments" at best and " response to a national security crisis" at worst. Endite